We are so very proud that at this year’s RDA Coaching Awards, two volunteers based at MRT won awards; Isla Stewart won Young Coach of the Year 2024, and Karen Glasgow, the RDA Regional Coach for Edinburgh, Borders and Fife for the past 10 years, who bases herself at MRT, won Coach Mentor of the Year 2024!

 

We are so proud to have Isla Stewart on our Coaching team, as a caring and energetic Coach, massive congratulations Isla! Isla joined us as a young volunteer, age 14 in 2017.  She started her Coach training in 2022, at the same time as training to be a nurse!

 

 

In awarding Isla Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) Young Coach of the Year 2024, RDA UK said,
…Isla thrived on the coaching pathway, demonstrating an eagerness to learn and develop her skills. At age 20, she reached the final stages and after glowing feedback from her Regional Coach, became a fully-fledged Group Coach, with later discussions revealing her session was ‘one of the best sessions’ the Regional Coach had ever seen for their first assessment.
Isla holds the attention of participants and volunteers well; she is perceptive and can pick up on the mood of her participants early on in sessions and makes adaptations to her lesson to accommodate them. Isla has exceptional equine knowledge and has developed a good eye for matching horse and rider, with her knowledge benefiting all her participants. Isla has become an integral part of MRT, continuing her learning and development as a coach and developing positive relationships with her participants, parents and volunteers….

 

 

We are so lucky to have Karen based here at Muirfield Riding Therapy, for our Coaches and volunteers to be able to draw on her extensive equine and training knowledge and experience, which in turn helps ensure our participants receive the best therapy. Huge congratulations Karen!
For anyone who doesn’t know Karen, she joined RDA in 1998 after training as a The British Horse Society Intermediate Instructor. An RDA Advanced Coach for the past 13 years, she’s been RDA Regional Coach for Edinburgh, Borders and Fife for the past 10 years, running training days in the region and is an Advanced Coach Mentor and Assessor. She was awarded her RDA Fellowship in 2015.

 

 

In awarding Karen RDA Coach Mentor of the Year 2024, RDA UK said,
Karen encourages those around her to think differently about situations, using her famous ‘why’ question to push her mentees out of their comfort zones and encourages those around her to think and reflect on their own practice…
…Karen advocates for participants who may be experiencing adversity, speaking up and being their voices when they need someone. Over the past 3 years, Karen has grown tremendously as a coach, she has been a mentor for the first 2 Princess Royal Coaching Academy (PRCA) cohorts and her ability to self-reflect and deal with challenging situations has improved thanks to her own experiences on the Academy…